Apple’s Migration Assistant is just as bad as Microsoft’s upgrade
February 18th, 2007
It turns out that the slowness problem on my Mac Pro was caused by following Apple’s automatic instructions and using the Migration Assistant program to transfer my data to the Mac Pro from my old Power PC G4 Power Mac.
The Mac Pro is slow
February 15th, 2007
No, the computer itself isn’t slow but many aspects of the user interface are, and after the initial euphoria of the new Mac it’s beginning to annoy me a lot. Where Windows dialogs snap onto the screen many Mac windows and dialogs appear to pause for a moment before responding to your request, as though they’re considering whether they really want to do it or not. The whole user interface just has a slightly “slow” and unresponsive feel to it compared to XP. On my old G4 Power Mac I simply assumed this was the slow processor but this doesn’t seem to be the cause. At least, I don’t think the Mac Pro with its four processor cores running at 2.66GHz can be accused of being underpowered here…
High-tech Christmas House
December 22nd, 2006
This guy must have worked for months installing all these Christmas lights on his house and programming them to synchronize with the music. You might not want to have him as your direct neighbor but the result is truly awesome. Merry Christmas and congratulations!
Free speech depends on anonymity? NOT.
December 15th, 2006
On episode 70 of the Security Now podcast Steve Gibson repeats a statement that he has already made a number of times in the past: that there can be no freedom of speech without anonymity. Steve is not alone in this. The same statement is also repeated on the freenet project site (“Without anonymity there can never be true freedom of speech…”) and in many other places — it seems to be turning into a kind of modern-day axiom that nobody is really thinking about all that much.
Every time Steve makes this statement co-host Leo Laporte goes along with it as though it were a self-evident fact. This is a very odd statement coming from an American and a very odd statement for another American to agree with. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it from a Russian, a Chinese or a North Korean, but from an American this is nothing short of bizarre.
How to create a market from nothing
December 13th, 2006
A diamond is forever, right? Wrong. Diamonds are actually dirt cheap and your and the rest of the world’s romantic associations with them are a perfidious and carefully-orchestrated long-term creation of advertising agencies, sponsored by the South African De Beers diamond cartel.
Read this fascinating article from Atlantic Monthly (originally published in 1982) for a run-down on how an artificial market and a romantic tradition were created from nothing by advertisers — even in Japan, a country that previously had zero courtship traditions associated with diamonds. In fact, you will discover that even your reticence to ever sell your diamonds is not your own feeling but something that has been carefully implanted in you.
Welcome to the Matrix!
University is a lousy investment
December 8th, 2006
I’m still in bed with flu so today’s post is just another link. Michael Robertson, who was the man behind the mp3.com and is now responsible for Linspire, a Linux distribution designed for normal users, decided to do the math and work out whether going to university is a good investment. It turns out that it’s not, at least not in terms of money and if you have to pay for it yourself. Almost all prospective students would be better off taking all the money for their university tuition and investing it, and just working at any job they enjoyed.
Don’t believe it? Michael does the math here, read it for yourself.
Why cycle shorts should be black
December 6th, 2006
Have you ever wondered why most professional cycling teams wear black shorts? Here’s the answer:
| Black shorts | No Black Shorts |
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Don’t get caught in the rain in non-black shorts, boys!
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